Vulcan’s View 10: Volcanoes Seen From Space for June 22, 2012

Welcome to another Vulcan's View, where we get a look at the panoply of volcanic activity as captured by our eyes in the sky. As always, if you want to see all the activity from this week, check out the latest Smithsonian Institute/USGS Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report. Special thanks to the NASA Earth Observatory for many of the images here!

Axial Seamount, off of Oregon

There was a lot of news of the last couple weeks about the prediction for the next eruption of Axial Seamount. The undersea volcano is wired with sensors, so changes in seismicity (via hydrophones) and changes to the seafloor (measured sometimes by repeated sonar surveys or submersibles - see above) can be used to assess the state of the volcano. Research at Axial suggests that the current deformation of the seafloor means an eruption should happen as soon as 2014. In the short term, they found that seismicity at the volcano sharply increased within 3 hours of the volcano's 2011 eruption - something happens at the terrestrial brethren of Axial. We probably know more about Axial Seamount than any other submarine volcano, so the information gleaned from this volcano can help us understand how some of the other thousands of submarine volcanoes might behave before an eruption.

Image: The Bay of Naples region seen on July 23, 2001. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory.

Karymsky, Russia

Here is a shot showing three Kamchatkan volcanoes - Karymsky, Akademia Nauk and Maly Semiachik. This image shows some of the grey ash from Karymsky on the white snow of the Peninsula seen in the Spring of 2012. This image can trick the eye a bit as Karymsky can appear like a depression, like the crater lakes on top of both Akademia Nauk and Maly Semiachik. However, it lacks any sort of caldera like its neighbors - instead the lava flows from Karymsky define an almost perfectly circular boundary around the volcano.

Image: A piece of the Kamchatka Peninsula, seen in the spring of 2012. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory/R. Simmon

Grímsvötn, Iceland

Last May (2011), we were all watching the large (and short-lived) eruption of Grímsvötn in Iceland. That eruption produced the largest plume in Iceland in over 50 years - but caused nothing like the air travel disruption of 2010's Eyjafjallajökull eruption. The evidence of the 2011 Grímsvötn eruption is still visible at the surface, is an arcuate opening in the ice cap on the volcano. This was the source of the eruption and the meltwater that produced some of the jokulhlaups associated with the eruption. Eventually, this scar on Vatnajökull, the ice cap on Grímsvötn, will be healed, only to have new gashes ripped open during the next eruption of the volcano.

Pagan, CNMI

Another volcano that falls under the watchful eye of the USGS is Pagan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Much of the volcano monitoring that is done for Pagan is via remote sensing thanks to its location in the Pacific Ocean. Plumes like the one seen in this March 2012 image of Pagan are commonly and still going on today.

Iwo-Jima/Ioto, Japan

Sometimes we have little evidence of activity at remote volcanoes - such as at the Iwo-Jima/Ioto caldera in the Pacific. Even in this satellite image of the area, the evidence is ambiguous about whether there is a small plume showing near the island or just a cloud. The last confirmed eruption of Iwo-Jima took place in 2009 and it has had frequent small (VEI 1) eruptions over the past few decades.

Image: A potential plume at Iwo-Jima seen during the Spring of 2012. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory/R.Simmon

Curry, South Sandwich Islands

Things get even trickier when there are a lot of clouds that can disguise a plume. The plume spotted this May at Curry (part of the greater Zavodovski volcano) in the South Sandwich Island blended with the clouds in the area - and vortices caused by the interaction of wind and clouds in the south Atlantic can make identifying plumes tricky.

Image: A May 2012 image of the plume from Curry in the South Sandwich Islands. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory/R. Simmon